02/09/2026
'Oh my goodness - a new one," I sucked in my breath. 'No way!' I bought it in five seconds flat.
'Madison Avenue London,' said the label stitched in attractive, stylised embroidery.
'Fifties,' I said, as I stared at it some more. 'Maybe early Sixties,' sniffing out clues about the history of the label attached to the dress.
'But the style is later,' I pursed my lips, staring at the synthetic print, fresh and bold and in my favourite colours. 'So Madison Avenue must have lasted until the late Sixties at least.'
'The V neck and Empire Line seam and that bright blast of Italianate colour says 1968 to me.'
The Mirelle label hanging off the opposite side of the lining had been sewn on by deft fingers.
'Liz and Janet would have been there,' I thought of what they'd told me about their role in the Mirelle workroom as Apprentices from 1968.
'Is that their handiwork? That would be amazing. But they wouldn't remember, they had so many.'
I thought of them telling me they stitched Mirelle labels onto hundreds and hundreds of clothes, a Junior's first task. A thrill ran through me as I looked some more.
What else does this dress say?
She was small, the woman who bought it at the House of Mirelle, slender. The label says '38' possibly a bust size but that's my size 8-10 mannequin. 34 at a pinch.
It's the same for the hips and its very form-fitting and clingy. Drape's lovely all the way down her legs.
She was tall. But its second owner wasn't. The hem has been taken up. Badly, I might add, stitches hanging off in too-thick thread the sort you'd use on coats and the hem is wobbly. I felt a sharp pang.
That wasn't done in the Mirelle workroom. That happened afterwards. Maybe in Brighton where it came from.
Brighton? That's - oh - 500 kms from Hull. Why there? I wish it could talk and tell me its story.
Safe now in the Mirelle collection, I imagine a woman with huge coils of hair in that fab Sixties way, maybe tanned and possibly with a few pieces of gold jewellery.
What do you think she'd have been like? What would you team this sensational Sixties dress with?😍
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— at Hull, East Yorkshire.
